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David Warren: 'No regrets' about shooting Henry Glover after Katrina

David Warren and his wife.jpg

Former New Orleans police officer David Warren, embraces his wife, Kathy, after he was acquitted Wednesday (Dec. 11) in the shooting death of Henry Glover, who was killed in the days after Hurricane Katrina.
(Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)

Only hours after being freed from custody David Warren, an ex-New Orleans Police officer who has spent more than three years in prison for the post-Hurricane Katrina shooting of 31-year-old Henry Glover, spoke publicly for the first time since he was charged.

Warren, dressed in a gray suit and tie and flanked by his defense attorneys in the conference room of their offices, said he was "almost numb" when the jury delivered a not-guilty verdict Wednesday evening.

"It's a wonderful, joyous feeling, but I'm almost numb at the same time," the former officer told reporters Wednesday night. "I'm so very pleased."

As he walked into the conference room, Warren for a moment looked stunned, but the shock soon subsided as he calmly addressed the crowd.

Earlier this week Warren took the stand for more than five hours, remaining calm throughout extensive questioning from prosecutors.

"One of the things I was condemned for at trial was not wearing my emotions on my sleeve," Warren said. "I do have a lot of feelings. I do have a lot of emotions inside, but I can't say this is the time or the place to have that burst forward. It's not necessarily productive or constructive."

Warren's wife Kathy beamed. For the past two weeks, she has waited patiently for this day, sitting in a federal courtroom and watching the case against her husband play out before a jury, for the second time.

Warren was charged with civil rights and weapons violations stemming from the deadly shooting of Glover on Sept. 2, 2005. Warren shot Glover while patrolling an NOPD detective bureau station in an Algiers strip mall, just four days after Hurricane Katrina. He stood trial and was convicted in 2010, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Two years later an appeals court granted Warren a new trial, ruling that he was unfairly tried alongside four other officers charged with a grisly cover-up of the shooting that included setting a car carrying Glover's body ablaze and abandoning it top a levee in Algiers.

Warren does not deny shooting Glover on that day eight years ago, but maintains that he did the right thing. On Wednesday evening, as a free, man, Warren told reporters that he "has no regrets."

"I believe I took the proper action that day," he said. "I do not have any regrets."

When attorney Julian Murray turned and asked Warren to recount what the former officer had spoken about on the stand, Warren said he understood "completely the loss" the Glovers suffered at his hands.

"I understand that to lose a child is tragic situation," Warren said. "I am a father. I have five children. I do understand what it is to be a parent. What I said during my testimony was, if my son were in that situation where Henry Glover were a police officer and my son were in that position...I understand completely the loss they feel as a family. To them, I can sympathize with the tragedy and loss."

When Warren shot Glover, he had been an NOPD officer for just over a year. Before he was a cop, he was an engineer and a business owner in Wisconsin, where he's from. He joined the force, Warren has said, because he wanted to serve his community. But on Wednesday, he said he didn't think he'd ever be a cop again.

"I have no inclination to re-enter law enforcement, " he said, adding that he and his family are "at the point of literally starting our lives almost in a sense over again. It's a good question to have, it's a good position to be in, that I'm able to do that."

This trial was drastically different than Warren's first. Jurors this time heard nothing of Glover's burned body, of the car abandoned atop a levee, of the fabricated police reports that helped cover up the shooting. When asked how he felt about those things, Warren hesitated.

"I have no comment for the moment," he said, "I'll have to think about that.

Warren also wouldn't comment on former Officer Linda Howard, the key government witness at both of Warren's trials. Howard was Warren's partner on the day he shot Glover, and told jurors that Warren expressed no emotion after firing the single shot from his personal assault rifle, telling her only that he thought he'd missed his target.

Warren is white and Glover is black, a fact that has over the years inspired questions about possible racial motivations. But Warren said that he hopes New Orleans and its residents "would learn to deal with each other as individuals."

"The racial issue, the only way to address it is to know people as people and individuals," Warren said. "That's how you become friends and that's how problems get solved over time."

After 20 minutes, Murray and attorney Rick Simmons, told reporters that the Warrens had to get going - after all, Warren hasn't been home in years.

His first order of business, he said, is to be with his wife and five children, ages 15, 14, 12, 11 and eight. Although they didn't watch the trial in its entirety, the whole family was present as the verdict was read. Afterward, Warren said, they were "climbing over each other to get to me. It was a wonderful feeling to have."

"It's been three years," he said. "Enjoying my family, hugging my kids...the kids, they weren't supposed to grow up while daddy was away."